


Tonight You're Mine

by maxette



Series: I Want to Be Addicted [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (heat made them do it!), Alpha Harry, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And angst, Bonding, Cheating, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Fluff and Smut, Implied Mpreg, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Niall, Omega Verse, Somnophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:28:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxette/pseuds/maxette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Omega Niall goes into heat, but it will be hours before Liam, his bond mate, can get home and knot him. Alpha Harry needs to step in before the pain drives Niall insane. Now if Harry can just remember he has to give Niall back at the end of his heat, everything will work out fine . . . Here, have some porn and feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight You're Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this amazing prompt](http://1dkinkmeme.livejournal.com/8532.html?thread=9982548#t9982548):
>
>> So Liam and Harry are Alphas, Louis and Zayn are Betas, and Niall is an Omega. He is bonded with Liam.
>> 
>> One month, Niall goes into heat and Liam is away (on vacation or something) and he can't get back. The others try to look after him, but after a few hours he's in actual physical pain, and will be until he is knotted.
>> 
>> Eventually, Harry has to mate with Niall, because the pain is too much. Smut and knotting, with cuddles and fluff at the end. If it ends with Niam or Narry is up to the filler.
>> 
>> Bonus for Niall crying with relief when he is finally knotted, and for him coming multiple times before, and while on the knot.
> 
>  
> 
> I altered it a little bit with regard to Louis (how is a surprise! but I bet you can guess) because there if there’s something than I like better than a Narry happy ending, it’s a Lilo happy ending along with it. And Zayn + Perrie happy betas 4ever amen. I also made this an AU because . . . I don’t know, actually—that’s just how the story presented itself to me. I didn’t realize the prompt hadn’t specifically called for an AU until I was halfway through writing! Sorry, OP!
> 
> The dub con and D/s elements are no more than you have to expect from any omegaverse. The somnophilia is more dubious consenty, but I promise Niall is very enthusiastic once he wakes up. 
> 
> ETA: **Niall talks about a past miscarriage** and it just occurred to me that might be triggering. It's not graphic or in depth, but miscarriages are damn upsetting! Please let me know if there's anything else I should warn for, y'all! 
> 
> Also Harry is such a sub in my mind I don’t know how I made this work but here it is!

The first thing Harry is aware of that morning is Niall’s smell all around him, the salty-sweet taste of him, and the clench of his arse around two of Harry’s fingers—amazing, _perfection_ —and the second is that things have already spiraled rather out of control.

He jerks away from Niall, and stumbles back until he can’t go any farther, the wall cold against his bare shoulders. It’s early in the morning. Daylight is coming in pink and pale through the bedroom windows—Niall and Liam’s bedroom, of course, where Niall is writhing on their bed. He’s in heat. His skin is flushed and dripping with sweat, his eyes are all pupil, Harry can hear his heartbeat pounding, in time with Harry’s own, from two yards away, and his _scent_. . . it’s better than anything Harry’s smelled before, and this is far from the first heat Harry’s been a part of.

Not that Harry’s a _part_ of this one. This is an accident. This is Liam’s heat. Niall is Liam’s omega. Where is _Liam?_ He needs to be here, and take care of Niall, and do his job as an alpha, or why shouldn’t another, more deserving alpha do his job for him?

Against his will, Harry takes a step forward, toward Niall.

“Harry,” Niall whines, rubbing his cock with one hand and reaching toward Harry with the other. “Want you—need your knot—”

“Harry!”  

He jumps and looks to the doorway, where Louis is standing, staring wide-eyed at Niall. “What’s—is he—?”

“Yes,” Harry growls, moving to block Niall from the view of others. “He needs me.”

“Whoa,” Louis says, grabbing Harry by his shoulders. Even shorter than him, and a beta, Louis is strong, and manages to hold him in place, if not pull him back. “He doesn’t need you. He needs his alpha, right? He needs Liam.”

Niall sits up, grinding down on his own fingers, and stares at Harry. “I do need you. Harry—need your fat knot inside me, need you to fill me up—”

With a burst of strength, Harry gets away from Louis and lunges at Niall.

“What the fuck?” Harry hears faintly—a very small part of him knows it’s Zayn, and knows that he’s shouting, but everything is quiet and dark compared to the warm, bright light that is Niall, in heat and desperate for him.

Harry goes feral for the next few minutes as he’s pulled away from Niall, out of the room, and down the stairs. Eventually he passes out with the pain of wanting, being so close to having, and then so far away.

When he comes to, Harry is freezing cold and nauseous on the living room couch. They put him as far from Niall’s bedroom as he can be without going outside. But he can still smell him. Niall's scent is just the same as always—delicious, like musky orange zest—but somehow much better, like Harry's favorite meal after days without food. He’s trembling all over as he sits up. Every muscle hurts. His hands smell like bleach—Louis and Zayn must have wiped them down with cleaning wipes—but underneath that he can still make out the scent of Niall’s slick.

Zayn flies at him, pushing his shoulders to the back of the couch. “Don’t you try anything!” he says.

“I’m okay,” Harry says. “I’m not going after him.”

Though it’s more how sick he feels that’s keeping him on the couch than clear thinking. He knows he’s not allowed to knot Niall, not allowed to fuck him and hold him and taste him and _have him_ , knows that Niall doesn’t really want any of that, that Niall’s hormones are in control right now, and so Harry has to be rational enough for both of them. He knows that, deep down, but much closer to the surface he knows that an omega in heat is close by and Niall needs him.

“Get the fuck out of here!” he hears Louis shouting out the front door. Harry leans to look out the bay windows facing the street and sees a small crowd of alphas prowling around the front of their terraced house. Niall’s pheromones are broadcasting to half the city right now. Once he’s knotted, they’ll be concentrated and fixed on his alpha. All the more reason Harry should—

The door slams and Louis strides into the living room. “Why’s this happening? Niall shouldn’t be in heat again for another week!”

“I don’t know,” Harry moans, hiding his face in Zayn’s shoulder.

Since the summer after their first year at university, they’ve been able to keep time by Niall’s heat: every twenty-eight days he and Liam were locked in his bedroom for forty-one hours. Liam’s company had carefully scheduled his week of training in America for the middle of Niall’s dioestrus. _I’d never leave him_ , Harry thinks. And, as the manager of a bakery, he’d never have to. Who’d want Liam’s seven figure salary when you could have free pastries every day, anyway? Harry rubs his hands over his arms, trying to get warm.

“You two are useless, aren’t you?” Perrie says as she comes into the room from upstairs. “Zayn, get him a blanket. Louis, make a pot of tea.” They immediately hop to and she sits down next to Harry and puts his arm around him. “Poor Hazza. It’ll be all right, love.”

Perrie works at the Estrus Institute in Central London and deals with alphas and omegas in heat all day long. Heats are pretty straightforward for a bonded alpha and omega—stay hydrated, have fun—but any deviation from that and things get complicated. He’s so glad she’s here right now.

Zayn hurries back into the room with a quilt and wraps it around Harry’s back like a cape. Perrie puts her arm back around him and Zayn sits down on his other side and does the same. Harry sinks in between them and lets himself feel like a kid whose mum and dad will take care of everything for a minute.

“How’s Niall?” Zayn asks her.

“He’s a disaster, of course,” Perrie says. “Have you gotten in touch with Liam?”

“I have,” Louis says as he hurries back in the room with tea. “He’ll be on the next flight back, but that’s in three hours and then it’s seven hours in the air from New York.”

“Ten hours.” She bites her lip, thinking. Harry picks up his cup of tea and just holds the hot porcelain in his hands. “And it’s been at least an hour already—no way. That’s not going to work.”

“He’s four thousand miles away! There’s nothing else to do.”

“Nothing else that _Liam_ can do,” she says. “So _we_ have to step up and take care of his omega for him. The pain is going to be excruciating in about an hour and it’s only going to get worse. He’s not going to die, as long as we get him to drink enough water, but omegas have gone insane waiting that long to be knotted.”

“Could we use toys?” Zayn tries.

“Toys would help for a while, but eventually they’ll make him feel worse. The body works out the difference eventually, and it doesn’t like being tricked.”

“So what are our options here, Perrie?” Louis says.

“We can take him to hospital and see if they’ll forcibly end his heat,” she begins, but they all know that isn’t very likely. That’s really only done for omegas who go into heat too young or too old to survive carrying a fetus to viability. Plus Niall’s system would be out of whack for months afterwards. “We can take him to the Institute and use a professional,” she continued. That was a legitimate option. A lot of omegas used professional alphas until they bonded to an alpha of their own. Niall had never had to do that, though.

“That seems wrong, doesn’t it, without his permission?” Zayn says. “Knotting him with someone he doesn’t even know. Especially since he’s only ever been with Liam and—”

And Harry. Zayn catches his gaze and then quickly looks away.

That’s something they never talk about, mostly so Liam doesn’t kill him out of pure alpha instinct. They’ve all known each other since primary school, Harry and the four lads he’s always considered his best mates, his chosen family. Each of them had moved to London from different villages in England; Niall was technically the newest to the group, moving from Ireland when he was eight. They were all born to normal beta families, so it was something of a shock when Niall presented as an omega when he was thirteen, and an even bigger one when twelve-year-old Harry reacted to the smell of his heat by popping a knot in the middle of gym class and fucking him on the footie field. Niall’s first heat lasted fifty-two hours and Harry stayed with him the whole time. Harry fell a bit in love with him after that, but he was young, and freaked out, and never said anything. By the time Niall went into heat again—years later; heats were very erratic until omegas matured—Liam surprised them all again, presenting as an alpha, and telling Niall he fancied him. He was the obvious choice to knot Niall during his second heat. They were still together for his third heat and, by his fourth, they were bonded.

“Or Harry can knot him,” Perrie says, finally—their last option.

“No,” Harry says immediately. That’s a terrible idea. It will change everything. He can feel it in his bones.

“What’s wrong, Haz?” Zayn says. “You don’t want him? I thought alphas went crazy for any omega in heat.”

“No.” Harry takes a long drink of tea. “I want him plenty—too much. That’s the problem. Look at me, I’m still shaking.”

“You’re going through withdrawal.”

“Yes, I recognize the symptoms, Perrie!” Harry snaps and then immediately feels bad. This isn’t her fault. She’s the only thing keeping the rest of them from running around like chickens with their heads cut off, really. “I’m sorry.”

She squeezes his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re on edge. You’re going through withdrawal!”

“ _Why_ , though? I thought this only happened when bonds were recently broken.” Alpha bodies didn’t react well to being cut off from omega pheromones. “How do professionals get through this?”

“Well, we don’t stop them in the middle of mating,” Perrie says. “Any alpha would have a reaction to being pulled off an omega like that. But that yours is lasting so long . . .”

“What?”

“It’s unusual. It has to have something to do with the fact that you’ve knotted him before.”

“That was ten years ago.”

Perrie shrugged. “First knots do tend to leave an impression.”

Well, it had on Harry, anyway. Niall seemed to move on quickly enough. But Harry wasn’t bitter—he _wasn’t_ —and that wasn’t the point right now, anyway. “He can’t wait for Liam? There’s no way?”

“No way,” Perrie confirmed. “Someone’s got to knot him, Harry, and soon. It’s you or a stranger.”

“Is he on birth control?” Harry says. ”Does anyone have a clue?”

“I doubt it,” says Zayn. “Why would he be? They weren’t actively trying or anything, but—”

They want babies sooner or later. Who doesn't? _Fuck_. What if Harry gets Niall _pregnant?_ Condoms didn’t work with an omega in heat. It would never end if Niall’s body didn’t get Harry’s come. A deep, primitive part of him burned hot at the idea, but he pushed that down.

“This isn’t fair,” Louis says, shooting to his feet and starting to pace. “This is so fucked. Poor Liam.”

“Liam? This isn’t fair to Niall!” This was practically rape, even if it was rape to save his life. Though he knows how he’d feel if another alpha took his omega—remembers how he did feel at fifteen, when Niall spent his second heat with Liam and Niall wasn’t even _Harry’s_ then—he had never been Harry’s—so he admits, “Or to Liam.”

“No, it’s shit for Niall, you’re right. You’re a poor substitute.”

“Oy! Thanks very much, mate.”

“Not—you’re the greatest, Harry, you know I love you. I just mean, for Niall—compared to Liam—”

Harry goes to Louis, puts his hands on his shoulders. “Lou, I—I’ve seen how you look at him, sometimes,” Harry says quietly.

Louis laughs. It’s a good laugh, loud, and boisterous, and almost believable. “What are you talking about?”

Harry just pulls him into a hug and holds him. He needs the comfort as much as Louis does.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Harry calls into the bakery to clear his schedule for the next two days as he finishes his tea. Then he has a piss and splashes some water on his face, hoping a better solution will present itself, finally admitting that there’s nothing else to do but stuff Niall full of his cock. Zayn gives him the key. Harry goes back upstairs, takes a deep breath, feeling the desperation build as he takes in the scent of omega, and opens the door.

Inside, Niall has torn the room apart. All the pillows are shredded, feathers floating in the air and covering the floor. The curtains have been pulled off the rod. Everything’s been wiped off the top of the tallboy, including the mirror, though it’s thankfully not broken, just askew on the floor. Harry doesn’t get a chance to take in anything else before Niall jumps on him, slamming him against the door, wrapping his legs around Harry’s hips and his arms around Harry’s neck. Harry catches him with one hand around each soft, round arse cheek.

For the first time Harry allows himself appreciate what a wonderful day this is. He has a naked omega in his arms, dripping wet and desperate—and it’s _Niall_.

“Harry,” Niall moans into his skin. “You’re here. You finally came back to me.”

“I’m here,” Harry says, kissing his forehead. Niall moves his mouth closer and Harry kisses him again, sucking Niall’s tongue into his mouth. “All yours.” Slick is leaking out of Niall’s hole steadily, dribbling over Harry’s fingers. Harry dips his hands into the crease of his arse, savoring the sticky feeling in between his fingers, teasing Niall’s needy pucker.

Niall is chanting his name. “—Harry, Harry—please fuck me. Please, I need you—need your cock, need your knot—”

Without another word, Harry stuffs two fingers up Niall’s hole, the same two that he’d gotten up there before he was fully conscious that morning. Omegas don’t need stretching or lube when they’re in heat, but Harry always feels the need to check they’re properly prepared to take his cock. Niall throws his head back and lets out a keening moan, fucking himself on Harry’s fingers and scratching his nails across Harry’s shoulders. Harry crooks his fingers to drag across Niall’s prostate and just lets him ride out an orgasm, watches Niall’s face as the pleasure washes over him, presses his mouth to whatever looks good—Niall’s plump lower lip, the edge of his jaw, his earlobe . . . he was too young to appreciate all that the first time. They were just kids. But they’re both grownup now and Harry is going to make the most of this brief second chance to be Niall’s alpha. He’s going to worship him.

It doesn’t take long for Niall to come on Harry’s fingers, translucent omega come spurting out of the fat, pink head of his cock. His erection doesn’t soften at all, but the rest of him goes lax, Harry reaching up just in time to support his weight. He carries him the little ways to the bed and gently lays him down. The mattress and the fitted sheet have survived Niall’s rampage of the room, and that’s more than they need to be comfortable.

Harry keeps stroking his prostate with one hand, runs his hand over Niall’s hair with the other. He’s really blonde right now, and his hair’s getting a little long—he's utterly beautiful.

“That feel better?” Harry asks him. “That take the edge off?”

For a moment, Niall smiles and nods, but then the same desperate expression comes back. “No,” Niall whines. “Still need your knot, Harry, need you to fill me up, need you—”

“Yes,” Harry says, pulling just far enough away to pull of his shirt and kick off his sleep pants, ripping them thoroughly if the sound is anything to go by.

For the first time Harry sees his cock next to Niall and is struck more than usual by out of proportion they are, alpha and omega. His cock is as long and wide as Niall’s forearm and it seems impossible that he’s going to fit inside him—but Niall’s body is devastating itself with the need for exactly that.

“Been thinking about it,” Niall says, jacking Harry’s cock, his fingers barely overlapping around the width. “I think about it all the time, Harry, think about your cock, fuck myself with my fingers and imagine they’re you, want you so bad, but you never—”

It’s a fantasy, Harry reminds himself, before his heart explodes in bloody sparkles everywhere—it’s a fallacy. Niall’s heat has been torturing him for hours. Those hours have felt like days to him. That’s why it sounded like Niall thinks about him all the time, not because he actually does. Of course not. He has Liam.

“Do you know what you do to me?” Harry says because he can’t help himself and Niall probably won’t remember this, anyway. “Do you know what I think about every time I look at you? Do you know what I want to do to you?”

Niall shakes his head. “Do it. Please, c’mon, do it. Show me what you want.”

Harry kneels on the bed and takes Niall by the legs, moving him so his hips cant upwards on Harry’s knees and his ankles rest on Harry’s shoulders. Harry presses a kiss to the smooth skin of Niall’s calf, running his hands down his legs to his thighs. Then he takes his cock in hand and presses it against Niall’s hole, spreading his precome over Niall’s wrinkled skin, pressing inside just far enough to watch the skin stretch tight around him and close over the fat mushroom head. He starts thrusting, shallowly, all the way out and back in, Niall squeezing around him, trying to draw him in deeper.

Finally Harry thrusts his whole cock inside, slow, but unrelenting, holding Niall’s hips steady in a bruising grip, opening Niall up to him. Niall lets out a searing groan as Harry goes deeper, inch by inch, and comes again as Harry bottoms out, spurting slick all over his stomach. “Harry!” he screams. “Oh my god, you—your—I’ve never been this full.” Harry’s sure Niall says that every time, but it still feels amazing to hear it said to _him_.

Harry starts fucking him, slow and deep, but he’s not going to last long. His knot is already swelling, ready to come and tie them together. His eyes train on Niall’s bond bite, the faint mark of Liam’s teeth on Niall’s neck, even fainter than usual because his skin is so flushed. It’s not a well-maintained bite. Harry’s always resented that, both that Liam doesn’t take every opportunity to revel in his bond with Niall, and that they don’t seem to feel the need for external reminders, they feel it so strongly inside. Some alphas never let their bond bites fully heal. Most at least reopened it every heat. Liam hadn’t even broken the skin his on their first anniversary. It’s hardly a bond bite now. Any alpha could bite him, displace Liam’s bond, and make one of his own—no. Madness lies that way. 

Harry closes his eyes and tries to focus on what he does have, on every wondrous inch of Niall tight around him, hot, slick, and velvety. He gives one last thrust forward, feeling Niall’s hole stretch around the flare of his knot, locking Harry inside. Niall shudders and gasps and—Harry’s breath catches—bursts into tears.

“Are you okay?” Harry says. “I can—” but he can’t really do anything now that they’re tied, so—

“No!” Niall sobs, wrapping his arms around Harry’s shoulders and pulling him down so they’re pressed together all the way up their torsos. “No, it’s so good—it’s so—it’s wonderful. You can’t imagine how it feels, after needing it so badly, and finally—finally—” Harry kisses him gently on the mouth and then kisses up one wet cheek to his eye, running the tip of his nose over the soft curve of Niall’s eyebrow. “It’s the greatest relief.”

An alpha’s first orgasm after knotting is extensive, several minutes of pumping come into his omega. Harry’s heard stories that you can make an omega keep coming with you, that whole time, but he’s never managed to do it—until this time. Niall is absolutely stunning, falling apart in his arms, spending onto his stomach until it’s dripping down his sides, rolling his hips, pressing his prostate against Harry’s knot.

“Do you feel me coming inside you? You feel me filling you up?”

“Yes,” Niall groans. “It’s so hot. I can feel you moving through me. You going to breed me, alpha?” With a choked groan, Harry comes again. Niall runs his hands over Harry’s back. “There it is. Hazza—you’re going to make me burst with it.”

They both come several more times, rutting against each other as their orgasms build and wane. Then Harry’s knot contracts and Harry’s cock softens, but not by much. Harry takes one of Niall’s legs off his shoulder and uses it to move him onto his side, curling in behind him. Niall pulls Harry’s arms tight over his chest and kisses his elbow, down his forearm, wherever his mouth can reach. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“My pleasure, love,” Harry says into Niall’s hair and lets sleep take him.

Harry wakes up with his cock still inside Niall, harder than ever. He can already feel heat pooling at the base of his cock, the need to come, the need to fill Niall with his seed, prickling in the end of his cock. He starts thrusting into Niall lazily. Niall’s still asleep, but he moans and jerks his arse back against Harry, moans a little. As Harry wakes up more, and gets closer to coming, he gets up on his knees and pulls Niall’s hips up with him. Niall wakes up at that, blinking at Harry over his shoulder.

“Harry, what—ooohh—” his words dissolve into a moan as Harry rocks him with a particularly hard thrust.

“Sorry,” Harry says, though he can’t make himself stop doing what he’s apologizing for, his hips jerking against him even as he tries to keep still. “I couldn’t help—”

“No, no. It’s the—” Niall laughs. “—best part of waking up.”

Harry is thrusting faster now, enjoying the slap of his heavy balls against Niall’s thighs, the squelching sound of Niall’s slick passage squeezing his cock, pulling him deeper inside.

“Yes!” Niall says. “Hard, like that. Harder. Own me, alpha.”

Harry’s pace is brutal, pushing Niall farther up the mattress with every thrust. Harry leans forward, pressing his front hot and slick along Niall’s whole back, and puts his hand on top of Niall’s head as a barrier between it and the big wooden headboard as he knocks him forward. Harry fucks him until Niall’s moans become rough and frayed. His knot swells, tying them together for the second time.

Niall goes limp underneath him and Harry feels his heart stop.

“Niall,” he says, turning them on to their sides so he can see Niall’s face better. He’s out, not even a twitch of recognition. “Niall!” Harry shakes him and, after some hesitation, slaps his cheek.

With a gasp, Niall opens his eyes. His body tenses for a moment and then relaxes so completely Harry would think he’d passed out again except his eyes are still open. “Too much,” Niall gasps. “You know when the pleasure’s so much it’s—too much.” Harry does know—the pleasure is buzzing on his own skin, too, just this side of pain—but seeing Niall like this, like he’s drugged, is still terrifying. Niall smiles and kisses him, weakly. “It’s good. You’re—so good, Hazza. My Hazza.”

Harry holds him tight and kisses him thoroughly through their knotting, making sure he stays awake. Harry makes himself pull out this time because part of his job during Niall’s heat is to make sure he’s not hurt or making himself sick while his whole system focuses on making a baby. He spreads Niall’s limbs out and looks over both his arms, over his chest and his lightly muscled abdomen, which have all suffered some love bites and beard burn, but look fine. He has five deep purple bruises on either side of his hips. Harry spreads his hands over them, each of his fingers matching up perfectly. He presses down a little bit and Niall moans, his still stiff little cock jerking against his belly. There are a few more finger-shaped bruises on his thighs, but the rest of his legs look good as new.  

He lifts Niall off the bed in a bridal carry and sets him down in the overstuffed armchair on the other side of the room. In the closet he finds clean sheets, waterproof mattress pad, and some extra pillows, and he goes about stripping the mattress of the soiled bedclothes and replacing them with fresh. He checks the bottom of the chest of drawers on Liam’s side of the bed and finds four bottles of Gatorade and some Maximuscle chocolate bars: provisions for just this situation; you don’t want to have to leave the bedroom after the onset of a heat. Harry puts a couple of bottles on the tabletop.

When he comes back to him, Harry finds Niall already asleep in the chair. He lifts him up and carries him back to the bed. Harry lies down and Niall fits himself against his body automatically. “Baby, I need to you to stay up for another minute,” he says.

“Why?” Niall says, burrowing deeper under Harry’s arm.

“Have to get some fluids in you, babes. You hungry?”

Niall opens his mouth to bite at Harry’s chest weakly, flicking the tip of his tongue over Harry’s nipple, and hums. “Nope.”

He’ll make him eat a protein bar the next time he wakes up, Harry decides. Fluids are enough for now. He opens up a bottle of Gatorade and sits himself up so Niall, lying against him, sits up, too. He presses the rim of the bottle against Niall’s lip. “Open up and swallow, sweetheart.” Niall obeys him and steadily drinks the whole bottle. “Good boy. Thank you.”

Snuggling against him, Niall says, “You drink one, too.”

Harry chuckles. “All right.”

Niall slaps him lightly. “Do it!” Harry dutifully opens another bottle and downs it. Niall watches him, nodding as Harry finishes. “Good.”

He closes his eyes and he’s asleep five seconds later, breathing deep and even, safe in Harry’s arms. Harry lets himself fall back asleep, too.

Some time later, Harry beats Niall awake again. This time he crawls down in between Niall’s legs and takes his cock into his mouth. Omegas have short, fat cocks—a perfect mouthful. It’s not as sensitive as his arse, and he’s heard a lot of guys insist performing oral sex isn’t worth the effort, but Harry has always disagreed. But why wouldn’t you want to run your tongue over every inch of your omega? Harry has no idea. Maybe some alphas just don’t appreciate the gift that they’ve been given.

Niall starts to wake up, spreading his legs, lifting them up so his arse is more accessible. He stuffs his own fingers inside his greedy hole and fucks himself, catches his slick and feeds it to Harry. He grabs onto Harry’s hair and grinds his arse onto Harry’s mouth. It’s glorious, but it’s not long before he starts scrabbling at Harry’s shoulders. “You’re so good, but—oh, Harry, oh my God—Harry, I need you—I need you inside me again. You can’t just—I need you to fuck me, Harry, I need your knot.”

Harry is happy to oblige. He sits up and pulls Niall down to meet him by his legs, squeezing his cock into Niall’s arse in one fluid motion. Niall is so fucking beautiful laid out like a feast as Harry thrusts into him. He’s arching his back, gripping the sheets in his fists, moaning and rubbing his face against the pillow, his skin all pale and pink and luminous. Suddenly Harry is struck with how many times Liam has seen Niall like this, the knowledge rushing over his skin like fire.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” Niall moans, stretching his arms out to grab Harry’s thighs. “Don’t stop, _please_ don’t ever—”

“I’ll stop.” Harry’s threatening him now. “I’ll stop before I knot you again. You’re not in pain anymore—you can wait for your alpha now. Don’t you want your alpha to come here and fuck you properly?”

“ _You’re_ my alpha,” Niall hisses, which is _not_ the way Harry expected him to respond.

“Say it again.”

“You’re my alpha, Harry,” Niall says, his voice firm and sure.

Harry _howls_ , his knot swelling and locking them together. Niall comes, grinding his prostate against Harry’s knot. He grabs Harry’s hair tight in his fist and pushes his head down.

“Bite me,” he whispers. The urge to do it is so great Harry has lunge forward and bite the pillow instead. “Do it, Harry, I want you—I want it so badly. Bite, Harry, please—”

“I _can’t,”_ he growls. “You know I can’t, I—”

Niall cries out and bites Harry instead, hard on his neck where the muscle curves to become the shoulder—the bond spot. He doesn’t break the skin and it wouldn’t matter if he did—it’s up to an alpha to make a bond, maintain the bond, or neglect the bond until it breaks. Biology even said an alpha didn’t need an omega’s consent, though the law disagreed. It meant death in most countries if a bond was forced.

Niall doesn’t say anything the next ten minutes that they’re tied, won’t even look at him, hiding his face against Harry’s chest. When Harry’s knot goes down enough for him to pull out, he does it quickly, and lies down, pulling Niall against him. After a moment Harry realizes that Niall’s not shaking as he comes down from his orgasm—he’s crying. “Hey,” Harry says, “What’s wrong? Baby, no—please don’t cry. Tell me what’s wrong, baby, please. Let me make it better.”

“You’re not my alpha.”

“I—I know that.”

“How could I _say_ that? I’m a terrible person.”

“No! Nialler, baby, that was just dirty talk. The stuff that gets us off when we’re turned on doesn’t mean anything. Cheating’s just a sexy fantasy.”

“But it’s not just a fantasy. I am cheating!”

Harry pushes himself farther down the bed, so he and Niall are at eye level. “Niall, you went into heat. Liam wasn’t here. You needed an alpha. You need me and I’m taking care of you, right?”

Niall takes a deep breath, nodding, calming down a little. “That’s all it is.”

“No,” Harry says, hoping he isn’t about ruin the rest of Niall’s heat. “It’s also that I love you and I’m decided to take today for myself.”

“Harry—”

“Can you forgive me?”

“Yes,” Niall says immediately, kissing his cheek, his nose, his other cheek.

“You think Liam will forgive me?”

Harry feels Niall smile against his neck “Of course he will.”

Harry laughs, even though it only makes him feel worse that Liam is so big-hearted and generous. He’s probably forgiven Harry already. He’s probably grateful that Harry was here and Niall could go through this with a friend. Harry doesn’t deserve to be their friend. He didn’t deserve this night with Niall, either, but . . . _oh well_ , he thinks. _I guess I’m just lucky_.

“I love you, too, you know,” Niall says.

“Course you do. We’re brothers, the five of us lads, aren’t we?”

Niall hums. “Thank you for not biting me.”

“No problem,” Harry says, running his fingers over Liam’s mark on Niall’s neck without meaning to. It’s not even raised anymore. He wonders if that’s why Niall went into heat early, his body desperate to be reclaimed. “Why doesn’t—”

Harry doesn’t finish. It’s an outrageously invasive question.

“I don’t know why,” Niall whispers. “I’m afraid to ask him.”

“He loves you.” Harry’s sure of that, at least. Niall doesn’t respond. Harry looks at the clock, glowing blue on the bedside table. It’s eight-oh-six—at night, Harry’s guessing, but only because the world is lit by lampposts and the moon outside the bedroom window. Harry’s has no idea if it’s been twelve hours since he came in here, or thirty-six. “He’s probably home,” Harry says. “You could—”

Niall presses a finger against Harry’s mouth and says, “Shhh,” as swings a leg over Harry’s hips and sits up to straddle him. “I don’t—would you mind—seeing me all the way through this one?”

Harry’s not sure where that hits him harder—his cock or his poor, battered, treacherous heart.

“Yes,” he says, pushing himself up to get close enough to kiss him. “Yes, yes, please, I—I mean, no, I don’t mind—”

Niall breathes out a laugh against his mouth. “Thank you, Hazza,” he says and then dips down to suck a kiss out of his mouth. Harry knots him one more time, Niall sitting on his cock and riding him for over an hour. Niall falls asleep sitting up with Harry still knotted inside him, and Harry swiftly follows suit.

The next time Harry wakes up he knows it’s over. They separated in sleep, both of them curled toward each other, but no longer touching. Harry’s cock is soft and uninterested like it hasn’t been since Niall went into heat. Beside him, Niall’s dry and pale and smells normal again—just as good, really, but less overwhelming. Harry gets up carefully and sprints naked to his room across the hall. As he pulls on some clothes, he calls the Nando’s around the corner and orders all of Niall’s favorites. It’s enough food to feed an army, but he wants Niall to have whatever he wants. Harry runs out to pick it up and hurries back, lays out the food on real plates, and carries them upstairs. He leaves it all outside Niall’s bedroom, not wanting the smell to wake him up too soon, and goes back in to run a piping hot bath in the en suite and turn on some music.

He should really let Liam take over Niall’s aftercare, would have let him if he’d seen him as he ran around the rest of the house, but he didn’t, so Harry is taking this one last thing for himself.

Niall is starting to wake up, fidgeting on the bed, so Harry goes to him, wakes him up the rest of the way by rubbing his hands over shoulders, across his face. “Hey,” he says, smiling, as Niall opens his eyes. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”

Niall stretches, winces. “Sore. Really hungry.”

“I’ve got a bath ready for you, and Nando’s. You can take some paracetamol once you’ve got some food in your stomach.”

Harry moves to stand, but Niall catches his hand, holding it to his mouth and pressing a kiss to his palm. “Thank you.”

Harry carries him right into the bathtub and hurries back out to get the food. He crouches down beside the tub and shows him the tray of options. Niall picks one, grinning. “I can feed you?”

“That would be nice,” Niall says, smiling, sinking deeper under the water.

Harry feeds him bites of chicken, vegetables, and rice silently. It should have felt awkward, just watching Niall chew and swallow, and Niall looking back at him, but it’s just—pleasant: warm, good-smelling, fundamentally satisfying to be taking care his mate, even in these last moments that Niall would ever be his mate. Harry feeds him two and a half meals worth of food, draining and refilling the tub with hot water periodically, and finishing up with some painkillers and another bottle of Gatorade.

Niall dunks his head under water and sits up, shaking off like a dog. “I should actually bathe now. I stink.”

“You smell amazing,” Harry says, making himself stand up. “But I’ll leave you to it. I should take a shower, too.”

“You could—” Niall cuts himself off, looks down. “Yeah. Sounds good. I think I’m going to make root beer floats in a bit.”

Harry grins. “Count me in. I’ll see you downstairs.”

As his last indulgence, he bends down, smoothes Niall’s wet hair back, and kisses his forehead.

 _Enough_ , he thinks as he walks away, trying to believe it. _Enough now_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He gathers the sheets as he leaves the bedroom and starts a load of laundry before he showers and changes into some clean clothes. His upper body is covered in bites, scratches, and suck marks, crisscrossing over his tattoos like new ink. He wishes they would last that long, wishes they’d burn and ache forever, never wants to stop feeling like this because the pain is the only thing he can keep.

He beats Niall to the kitchen and finds a couple cups of tea steeping on the counter. Someone’s around now and Harry can’t help but hope it’s not Liam. As kind as he is, Harry’s still half-expecting to get a broken nose the next time he sees him.

It turns out to be Zayn and Perrie, who each hug him and murmur nonsense at him like he’s a baby.

“I’m fine!” Harry says. “I promise. Everything’s fine.”

They leave him alone and take their tea into the dining room. Harry checks that they have supplies for root beer floats. They don’t have any cold root beer, and warm makes the ice cream melt too quickly, so he puts a couple bottles of A&W into the freezer and then just stands there for a little while, breathing in the ordinary peace of their kitchen. He hopes this hasn’t fucked everything up so much Harry has to leave the house. He’d been half-planning for the five of them to live together into old age, even once they all had mates and kids and the rest of it.

He locks into Niall’s scent as the omega comes downstairs and sits down in the dining room with Zayn and Perrie.

“Where’s Liam?” Harry hears him says softly.

“Uh—with Louis.”

“And where’s Louis?”

Harry walks to the doorway and watches Zayn take a long sip of his tea. “In his bedroom.”

“Why are they—?”

“For God’s sake, you great girl’s blouse,” Perrie says, slapping Zayn on the back of the head. “Louis went into heat last night.”

Niall’s jaw drops. “He—what?”

“Apparently he’s not a beta. He just hadn’t presented yet.” Perrie shrugs. “Twenty-two is pretty old to have your first heat, but it’s certainly not unheard of.”

“And Liam’s—with him.”

“Oh, you can _not_ feel bad about that,” says Zayn. “What a double standard!”

“He can feel however he likes,” Harry says, walking the rest of the way into the dining room. “He didn’t want any of this, you know. He didn’t logic it out, weigh the pros and cons. It’s not easy having instinct take over your rational mind.”

Niall stares at him for a long moment, then shoots up and walks straight through the kitchen door to their small, hedged backyard. Harry follows him.

“Hey,” Harry says, catching his shoulder. “Are you—?”

“Is that all it was?” Niall says. “Instinct? A biological drive?”

He takes a deep breath. “Not for me.”

“Louis’ in love with Liam,” Niall says, which is really not what Harry wants to be talking about right now, but Harry’s going to let him drive the conversation.

And Louis and Liam . . . he can’t lie to him. All he can say is, “Yeah.”

“Liam loves him, too. Remember how they used to be at each other’s throats? I think even that . . .” Niall shakes his head, smiling almost—fondly? “He talks about alpha-beta couples more than he realizes, about who Louis might end up with, if he’d be happy with an alpha. And sometimes I’d see them together . . . bonding was a bad idea. I knew that as soon as—”

Niall looks down, seems to shrink into himself. Harry puts his hand on the back of Niall’s neck and bends down close to him. “As soon as what?”

“—I miscarried.”

It takes Harry an excessively long time to process what that means. “You never—when were you pregnant?”

“I was thirteen weeks along when we bonded . . . nineteen weeks when we lost the baby.”

“Oh, Ni, I’m so sorry.”

“Remember that night I dragged you to a karaoke bar and we stayed out so late we ended up going for breakfast, found that sick all night diner in Chelsea?” Harry nodded. He had never seen Niall get so pissed, eat so many pancakes, or throw up so much. “That was the night after the doctor confirmed. Liam went out with Louis. That says everything, doesn’t it? We should have broken the bond then. Liam and Louis—I don’t feel bad at all. I’m happy for them.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say except, “He’s your alpha.”

“I love him,” Niall says. “I always have, but I—I love him like I love Zayn and Louis and—”

“And me?”

“No,” Niall says. “Not like you.”

Harry stumbles back, catching himself against the wide trunk of the old maple tree that dominates the yard. He rubs his palms over the rough bark, trying to ground himself. Niall loves him—loves him _more?_

“Have you always felt that way?” Niall just nods. “How could you bond with Liam, then?”

“Because I was pregnant! And he asked me to! And I love him and we were good to each other. And you never—you never even—Harry, you almost didn’t make it to our bonding ceremony because you were fucking our government teacher through his heat!”

“I needed a distraction! You were bonding to someone else!” Harry takes a deep breath. He feels like he’s crazy with this new information. It’s only been two years since Niall bonded with Liam. They haven’t lost that much time that he could have been with Harry, but it’s still _two years_ , twenty-four heats, over seven hundred days that Harry could have been fucking him and knotting him and claiming him as his, only his, completely his, loving him openly.

“So you want to be with me?” he says, finally.

“Yes!” Niall bursts into tears. Harry puts his arms around him and he melts against Harry immediately. “I’m sorry,” he says, wiping his face. “Do you want—?”

“Yes! Niall—yes. I want to wake up next to you every morning and I—I don’t mean to freak you out, but I want our grandkids to visit us on a farm every summer. I want to teach them how to milk a cow and—”

“Why won’t our kids have taught them how to milk a cow already?”

“I want to raise our kids in town. London’s an important education, lets them meet a lot of different types of people and—I’ve thought about this, Niall. Even knowing it was hopeless, I imagined our whole future together. I want green wallpaper in the nursery. I want to name our first girl after Gemma. Does that—are you—”

Niall threads his fingers through Harry’s hair, pulls his face down to his, and kisses him. Harry growls and grabs him by the waist, lifting him up and spinning him around to press him against the tree trunk. Niall leans his forearms on Harry’s shoulders as leverage and jumps to cross his legs around Harry’s hips, grinding Harry’s cock into his.

“As long as our second is Maura Anne,” Niall says, not pulling far out of the kiss. “I always thought that would be a lovely name.”

Niall’s thought about combining their mothers’ names? Could this really be his life now? It’s so much better than he’d ever let himself hope for.

“You’ve got a deal.”

Harry kisses him again, and rubs his cock against him leisurely, Niall arching his back more and more, moving Harry’s cock from pressing against his own cock to pressing against the crease of his arse. Harry runs his thumb over Liam’s barely-there bond bite. Niall moans, “I wish you we could bond right now.”

They have to wait twenty-eight days, until Niall’s next heat. Harry licks Niall’s neck, opens his mouth wide over his trapezius muscle, pressing his teeth down on Niall’s skin lightly. Bonding could technically happen outside of heats, but it’s rare. The important thing is that alpha and omega are knotted during the bite, blood and saliva and coming together to make a physiological change—Harry didn’t pay that much attention in biology, but he remembers the general idea—and most alphas don’t form a knot without those pheromones driving it.

“Spontaneous knotting isn’t out of the question. I think—” Harry licks his way up Niall’s neck. “—we owe it to ourselves—” Harry kisses him. “—to fuck whenever possible—” Niall gasps against Harry’s mouth, grinding his arse down on Harry’s cock, the loose material of his shorts giving way easily. “—just in case.”

Harry gives a cursory glance at the house to check if they had an audience, but the sun is glaring off the glass and, really, Harry doesn’t care if Zayn and Perrie see them fucking against a tree in the middle of the afternoon. Niall is _his_. He wants to show it off. He unfastens his jeans, freeing his cock to spring out the slit of his pants, and pulls Niall’s shorts down just enough to reveal his arse. Like alphas don’t form a knot, omegas don’t produce much natural lubrication outside of their heats; Niall certainly isn’t dripping with slick the way he had been the night before, but he’s plenty wet and open enough to take Harry’s cock.

Without any warning, Harry presses his cockhead against Niall’s hole and pushes inside. Niall throws his head back and cries out as Harry fills him in slow inches. Harry revels in the sweet, perfect clench of him for a moment, before starting to fuck him. Nothing has ever felt this good—mating him freely, knowing Niall loves him back—not ever.

Harry feels the need to come building and accepts that a knot isn’t coming with it, but then—the zinging heat starts to grow at the base of his cock and his knot begins to swell. “Oh god,” Harry says. “My knot is—I’m going to knot you. I’m going to tie us, baby, and I’m going to bond with you—I’m going to make you mine.”

Harry thrusts in to the root and feels his knot expand completely, feels Niall’s passage stretching tight around him. Niall bares his throat. Harry opens his mouth over Liam’s old bite and sinks his teeth into Niall’s skin. He tastes the copper tang of blood and the smells the thick musk of omega and he comes and comes and becomes one with Niall in a way he never would have believed before it happened—for a moment, he is more Niall than he is himself. Then they’re separate again, just Harry and Niall, but closer than they were before, closer than Harry’s ever been to anyone.

“I love you,” Niall says. “So much—I’m so happy.”

“I love you, too,” Harry says. “I always have. Did I mention that?”

“Sometimes I feel like I made you an alpha. Like you wouldn’t have been one if it weren’t for me.”

“You might not be the reason I’m an alpha, but—you’re the only reason it matters.”

Niall grins at him—a glowingly beautiful, face-splitting grin. “Do you even know how to milk a cow?”

Harry laughs. “No! Do you?”

“I reckon we can learn.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did you find a typo or other monkey business in this fic? I know it can feel rude or pushy or just weird to tell authors about that stuff, so [I made a form where you can report it anonymously](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1--1RxNJyJCWZPaRyBeV6jtmUrcEI0zuUkDvoJoA6A_A/viewform). Thank you in advance for making a better reading experience for future readers.
> 
>  **Also some timestamps are acoming:** a parallel fic starring Liam and Louis; a flashback to underage Narry doing it in front of their gym class (because I want the fast track ticket to hell); future in which Niall and Louis are both pregnant and one night their alphas are overcome and fuck them side-by-side... tell me what you want to see! Comment or [tumblr](maxette.tumblr.com)... prompts are my fave. Update as of 4/16/15: they're still coming! Some day!


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